Wednesday, June 04, 2008

kdka.com - Frick International Academy Students React To Sen. Obama's Nomination 'It's going to be really interesting and it's going to be a fun ride for all of us to be part of. He's gonna really need to work on the blue collar vote - and Sen. Clinton's gonna have to come out and say, 'All my voters should go to Barack Obama to keep it within the party,' ' Erik Rauterkus, a seventh grade student, said.

There is a funny story to go with the news of this feature.

The reporter, MRJ, told the kids that she was looking for some interesting quotes and had gone to Pitt's political science department. She got blahh... She didn't want to waste her time. A call to Frick Middle School turned to be far more impressive than the prior conversation with the college students.

Erik and his mates were called out of their lunch periods.

When Erik came home after school and said he was interviewed by KDKA TV, I wondered if it was about the news of the closing of Frick.

Frick is a good school. One of the very best in the city. Sadly, it is being changed in radical ways. It will move out of Oakland. It will be merged in with high school students.

The local kids, the neighborhood kids, are going to be sent to a university prep school that will be in the Hill District and will be 99% black. The language magnet kids will be in I.B.World.

Many Frick kids go to many different high schools. Some went to Schenley (woops that closed too). Some go to CAPA. Some go to Dice. Some go to Central.

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Middle School Children React To Obama's Nomination

Mary Robb Jackson

OAKLAND (KDKA) ― Political pundits everywhere are weighing in on the historic nomination of Sen. Barack Obama, but we checked in with some voters-in-waiting who have been thinking hard about this election.

On Tuesday, Obama became the first African-American nominee of a major political party. But the words "black U.S. President" have long been an oxymoron.

"When I first heard about Barack Obama - I thought that, 'Oh well this is great,' but I also kind of feared for him a little bit," Aman Milliones-Roman, an eighth-grader, said.

But the nomination is making believers of seventh and eighth grade students at Frick International Studies Academy in Oakland.

"I feel that he can make it - it's just a matter of people coming out and voting for him - and himgetting Hillary's voters," Jackie Clarke, an eighth-grader, said.

Speaking of Hillary Clinton and supporters - primarily women and working-class voters - how can Sen. Obama sway that group?

"He needs to start taking on the issues that were so important to them so that it can better unify the entire country - or else it will fail," Caley Donovan, a seventh-grader, said.

And now that the Democrats will finally appear to have made a choice, what about tackling John McCain?

"It's going to be really interesting and it's going to be a fun ride for all of us to be part of. He's gonna really need to work on the blue collar vote - and Sen. Clinton's gonna have to come out and say, 'All my voters should go to Barack Obama to keep it within the party,' " Erik Rauterkus, a seventh grade student, said.